(Note: The following is an edited version of a speech by
David J. Undis at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Oct. 12 Issues & Ideas Luncheon in Lansing. Undis is founder and executive director of LifeSharers, a nonprofit network of organ donors.)

You can donate your organs when you die, you can bury them
or you can cremate them. Those are your only choices. If you agree to donate
them you may save several lives. If you don’t, several people may die.

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Sadly, only 30 percent of Americans are registered organ
donors. We bury or cremate 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Each of
those organs could have saved someone’s life. Instead, we have a large and
growing organ shortage. Over 50 percent of the people who need a transplant in
the United States will die before they get one.

The organ shortage is the result of bad public policy. It
is illegal to buy and sell human organs in the United States. The only available
organs are donated organs. Imagine if it was illegal to buy or sell food. Does
anybody think we wouldn’t have massive food shortages?

Public policy also undermines and discourages organ
donation. Organ donation is undermined by failure to enforce first person
consent laws (which make organ donations legally binding) and by letting
families stop transplants from registered organ donors. Organ donation is
discouraged by allocating organs to people who haven’t agreed to donate their
own organs. Let’s face it – if you had to be a registered donor to be eligible
for a transplant, just about everybody would register and thousands of lives
would be saved every year.

What are the prospects for a public policy solution to the
organ shortage?

The shortage could be eliminated if buying and selling
organs was legalized, but that’s just not going to happen. The whole subject is
much too controversial for most legislators.

The shortage could be reduced by enforcing existing first
person consent laws. But nobody wants to deal with a grieving family trying to
stop an organ donation and nobody has to deal with the people who die when they
succeed.

The shortage could be reduced by changing organ allocation
policy. Here the prospects are brighter, because no legislative action is
needed. The United Network for Organ Sharing, which sets national organ
allocation policy, has the power to give organs first to registered organ
donors.

UNOS hasn’t chosen to do this yet, but UNOS doesn’t have a
monopoly on organ allocation. The law says you can decide who gets your organs.
If you want to give your organs to registered organ donors, please join
LifeSharers.

LifeSharers is a national network of registered organ
donors. Our mission is to save lives by increasing the number of organ donors.
We are a nonprofit organization staffed by unpaid volunteers. Membership is free
and open to all at
http://www.lifesharers.com.

When you join, you agree to donate your organs to other
members after you can’t use them anymore. In exchange, you get preferred access
to the organs of every other member. That could literally save your life, so
this is a very good trade.

LifeSharers helps increase the organ supply by creating a
pool of organs available first to registered organ donors. The existence of this
pool creates an incentive for people who are not registered organ donors to
register and join the network. This incentive becomes stronger as our membership
grows. Every time somebody joins LifeSharers your chance of getting an organ if
you ever need one goes up – but only if you are a member.

LifeSharers also makes organ allocation fairer, by giving
organs first to registered organ donors. Without donors there are no
transplants. But about 70 percent of the organs transplanted in the United
States go to people who haven’t agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
That is just not fair.

I hope public policy makers will soon make reducing the
organ shortage a priority. After all, public policy created the shortage. But we
don’t need public policy changes to reduce the organ shortage. We just have to
stop throwing away organs that could save our neighbors’ lives.

Americans are dying at the rate of one every hour while
waiting for organ transplants. Please help save their lives. Joining LifeSharers
is a great place to start. You’ll help reduce the organ shortage, you’ll make
organ allocation fairer, and you’ll increase your chances of getting an organ if
you ever need one.

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David J. Undis is founder and
executive director of LifeSharers in Nashville, Tennessee. Permission to
reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the
Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.